William Atkins
Tuesday, 26 August 2008 07:02
Science -
Space
Page 2 of 3
Scott Altman will command the space shuttle Atlantis. Gregory C. Johnson will be pilot for the
STS-125 mission, with its mission specialists will include John Grunsfeld, Mike Massimino, Megan McArthur, Andrew Feustel and Michael Good.
{loadposition william)Lift-off of the STS-125 crew aboard space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled on October 8, 2008 at 1:34 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (0534 UTC). The launch window is 62 minutes.
The fully-assembled space shuttle, consisting of one orbiter, one external tank (ET), and two solid rocket boosters (SRBs), will begin its slow journey to Launch Pad 39A at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, just a minute into
Saturday Tuesday morning.
The space shuttle is mounted on a mobile launcher platform, which itself is on top of a crawler-transporter (CT). The CT will move at less than one mile (1.6 kilometer) per hour during its 3.5-mile (5.6 kilometer), six-hour trip from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida.
NASA Television (
NASA TV) will cover the move of space shuttle Atlantis beginning at 6:30 a.m. Since the first motion of the space shuttle is at 12:01 a.m., very little movement occurs until 6 hours, 29 minutes hours later, at 6:30 a.m.—at which (approximate) time the actual journey begins to the launch pad.
Space Shuttle Endeavour
has also been will be rolled out (at an indeterminate date) of its VAB later than Atlantis, but to its own launch pad (Launch Pad 39B). It will be launched only in the event an emergency occurs during the mission. The STS-125 crew will be visiting the Hubble Space Telescope, for a servicing and repair mission, instead of a shuttle crew’s usual visits to the International Space Station, for assembly activities to complete its construction.
What is a problem occurs during the Hubble servicing mission? Please read page three.
